unclegramps got these prescription sports goggles for the mudder. they were super cheap too. i'll ask him where he got them from. (i think that's what he used. he might have just used his stretchy strap thing that you shove the ends of your glasses in to.)

also, make sure to take off your wedding ring, lest you want to buy a new one. :-) (luckily the price of tungsten rings has become way more reasonable since 2005.)

Wow, sports goggles is a great idea! I have never heard of that before. (I'm not very sporty other than running!) I found two discussions in the TM forums where people asked my same question and there were responses from people who had problems with whatever they tried - glasses fell off, problems with mud in eyes with contacts, etc. I will definitely look into the sports goggles. And thanks for the wedding ring tip too - I usually remember to take it off for swimming, but I probably wouldn't think of it for an activity that wasn't 100% in the water.

yeah, his probably flew off when he was doing the monkey bars or the rings or something. (mud is a surprisingly effective lubricant!) there's also a brief ice water swim, and i bet that'd make any ring fly right off.

I want to do this so bad! My friend and teammate signed up a team called "[her name] is a bully." Hehe. But the WA one is the first weekend in Oct and I have two weddings that weekend. So superc and DtC, report back! I might do this next year. (Gotta work on my upper body strenght!)

It was tough and muddy! The obstacles were not the toughest part. I had read about all of them on the website and of course they make them sound really really hard. I was really scared of the electricity ones after reading about it. But then, nothing was as bad as the description - e.g., in the tunnels you had to crawl through, they made it sound long, dark, and teeny weeny, but really you could see the light at the end the whole way through and you had enough room to crawl on hands & knees instead of drag yourself with upper body. So I figured the electricity wouldn't be that bad either and I was right. I got one shock on the arm and it was fine. I was also concerned about ones with upper body strength because that is a weakness for me too. But I surprised myself and made it all the way through the monkey bars, and then there were other ones where it's totally expected that people will give you a boost.

I don't know what type of terrain they usually have them, but mine was at a ski mountain, so a LOT of it was going up & down hills. The hills that you would usually be skiing down and riding the chairlift up! HILLS. That was the toughest part. There was way less running than I expected, because of all the hills. Everyone just walked the hills. My team would have been happy to walk the whole thing, but I made them run the flats because otherwise we would have been there all day. (it took us about 4 1/2 hours because my team stuck together and went at the slowest person's pace - would have probably knocked off at least half an hour without her) It was hot out (80s), which usually I would hate but it was actually nice because there were a lot of water obstacles. We were wet the whole time, which kept us cool - I would not want to do it in cool weather.

When I was reading the forums about what to wear, there were a lot of people saying you NEED this or that, or definitely DON'T do this or that. I didn't do anything special except wear a strap for my glasses, which turned out to be unnecessary. I wore regular running shoes and regular running socks and I didn't even get any blisters. Anyway, I'm glad I did it, but I don't know if I would do it again. It was a fun challenge, but I wasn't as proud of myself for finishing as I am for getting a PR in a race.

they cut out 3 obstacles and over a mile of the course because people were dropping like flies. (i think it was over 90 degrees, and it was also in a hilly location.)

he wore a finn the human hat because he has black hair. he liked it a lot because it kept him cool, especially when it was wet. and it helped me find him too. i had trouble last year finding him, (and he me) so the bright turquoise shirt and hat really helped. (i had a rainbow umbrella, so that helped him find me.) i have a cooler/chair combo that only has hand handles, so i rigged up a sort of across the shoulder thing, but i think i might sew backpack type straps for next year. it was somewhat awkward. i may also use a golf umbrella next year to help with the hike. we'll see. i don't think the one i had blocked any UV. i might get this one. it's lovely. but of course, not as visible as a rainbow. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BYPZSWU/ref ... Rrb0WH7DCW

another thing i did this year was bring a lidded tub with some soapy water so we could throw the dirty clothes and shoes in there and they'll pre-soak/agitate while we drive home. it was awesome! the shoes were so much easier to clean this year than last. and the finn hat is mostly white again.

Oooh, I'm doing a Warrior Dash in August, which is not nearly as difficult sounding as a Tough Mudder, but it will still be challenging for me. I'm doing C25K now to get up my cardio, and am going to use pilates/yoga to gain more upper body strength for the obstacles. I don't want to win or anything, and I'm going with a group of people who are mostly doing it for fun, but I don't want to die of exhaustion halfway through, either! Neat to hear your stories about these obstacle runs, it puts it in perspective for me. There are definitely water obstacles, but I don't think very many hills, thank goodness. I'm mostly worried about running in wet shoes, honestly.

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua

I was also worried about running in wet shoes, but that part was no problem at all. My feet were soaked the whole time and for some reason I didn't even mind. (maybe because I was thinking about how sucky the hills were!) I think your training plan sounds good. Keep us posted!

gramps says don't wear toe socks if you'll be getting wet (at least that's his preference). some people duct tape their shoes to keep the mud out, i don't know how effective that is, but i saw a lot of people with it. (it was over the laces and under the arches, and some people also ran it behind their heels/ankles too.

Update! I did my Warrior Dash on Saturday and have lived to tell the tale! It was not nearly as impossible as I thought it would be. My dude and I did it in 58 minutes, but we could have probably done it in 10 or 15 minutes less if we'd really pushed ourselves, but we wanted to have fun and not crash at the end (we had some day drinking to do afterwards, after all). It was good to have someone there to help me down from some of the obstacles because some of the drops were pretty high. I also learned that next year I'll wear different clothes - loose running shorts were icky and floppy once they got soaked, so I'll wear tighter, spandex shorts. Probably same goes for my top, the cotton tank top I wore got very heavy. All in all, though, it was great! The obstacles were challenging, but fun, and they gave enough of a cardio break that the running wasn't that bad. We did walk pretty often, but that's ok. Also, it was pretty awesome just getting totally filthy and covered in mud.

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua

I've never done it but when I first heard of it last year I did some googling and I really like how it is supposed to be about comraderie, not leaving anyone behind and helping each other out with the ultimate goal of finishing together, rather than being competitive. I thought about trying it out but never got around to it.

Whiskergal, what part of NJ are you and your bf from? I live in north Bergen County.

I've never done it but when I first heard of it last year I did some googling and I really like how it is supposed to be about comraderie, not leaving anyone behind and helping each other out with the ultimate goal of finishing together, rather than being competitive. I thought about trying it out but never got around to it.

Yeah, they have competitive heats first thing in the morning for those that want to get awesome times, but the rest of the time it was groups of people running together for the most part.

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua